9C spent three lessons reading and responding to The Crossing just before the Easter holidays; this hard-hitting verse novel, which won last year's UKLA Book Awards, alternates between the perspectives of Natalie, a teenage girl living in Dover who has recently lost her mother, and Sammy, a teenage boy making the dangerous journey from Eritrea to the UK following the death of his father. It explores a range of important topical themes, including grief, homelessness, racial prejudice and the plight of refugees. After reading the beginning of the story and exploring Manjeet Mann's unique writing style, students had the option of continuing the story, writing from the perspective of a different character or writing an interview with the author in which she discussed some of her choices as a writer.  You can read a selection of their work here. 

The work they produced was breathtaking in its empathy, maturity and sensitivity, so it was wonderful to see this recognised by the judges from the UKLA in their glowing feedback here: https://ukla.org/news/our-class-loves-this-book-award-2024/.

Mr Dilley gave a presentation on the class's work at the UKLA's annual international conference in Brighton earlier in July, where he also collected the trophy on behalf of the class - but this was only part of the prize: this week we were delighted to welcome Chris Lockwood, chair of the UKLA's awards committee, who delivered several boxes of prizewinning books for the library and the English department to further enhance opportunities for reading for pleasure in school. And the best part of the prize is yet to come, as author Manjeet Mann will be visiting Kendrick in the next academic year.

Congratulations again to all the students on this magnificent achievement!